`I shall make a point of doing so, Captain Gills,' said Mr. Toots.
`Although I have heard something of the changes of events, from her,' resumed the Instrument-maker, taking his old spectacles from his pocket, and putting them on his forehead in his old manner, `they are so great and unexpected, and I am so overpowered by the sight of my dear boy, and by the,'--glancing at the downcast eyes of Florence, and not attempting to finish the sentence--`that I--I can't say much to- night. But my dear Ned Cuttle, why didn't you write?'
The astonishment depicted in the Captain's features positively frightened Mr. Toots, whose eyes were quite fixed by it, so that he could not withdraw them from his face.
`Write!' echoed the Captain. `Write, Sol Gills?'
`Aye,' said the old man, `either to Barbados, or Jamaica, or Demerara. That was what I asked.'
`What you asked, Sol Gills?' repeated the Captain.
`Aye,' said the old man. `Don't you know, Ned? Sure you have not forgotten? Every time I wrote to you.'
The Captain took off his glazed hat, hung it on his hook, and smoothing his hair from behind with his hand, sat gazing at the group around him: a perfect image of wondering resignation.
`You don't appear to understand me, Ned!' observed old Sol.
`Sol Gills,' returned the Captain, after staring at him and the rest for a long time, without speaking, `I'm gone about and adrift. Pay out a word or two respecting them adwenturs, will you! Can't I bring up, nohows? Nohows?' said the Captain, ruminating, and staring all round.
`You know, Ned,' said Sol Gills, `why I left here. Did you open my packet, Ned?'
`Why, aye, aye,' said the Captain. `To be sure, I opened the packet.'
`And read it?' said the old man.
`And read it,' answered the Captain, eyeing him attentively, and proceeding to quote it from memory. `"My dear Ned Cuttle, when I left home for the West Indies in forlorn search of intelligence of my dear--" There he sits! There's Wal'r!' said the Captain, as if he were relieved by getting hold of anything that was real and indisputable.
`Well, Ned. Now attend a moment!' said the old man. `When I wrote first--that was from Barbados--I said that though you would receive that letter long before the year was out, I should be glad if you would open the packet, as it explained the reason of my going away. Very good, Ned. When I wrote the second, third, and perhaps the fourth times--that was from Jamaica--I said I was in just the same state, couldn't rest, and couldn't come away from that part of the world, without knowing that my boy was lost or saved. When I wrote next--that, I think, was from Demerara, wasn't it?'
`That he thinks was from Demerara, warn't it!' said the Captain, looking hopelessly round.
`--I said,' proceeded old Sol, `that still there was no certain information got yet. That I found many captains and others, in that part of the world, who had known me for years, and who assisted me with a passage here and there, and for whom I was able, now and then, to do a little in return, in my own craft. That every one was sorry for me, and seemed to take a sort of interest in my wanderings; and that I began to think it would be my fate to cruise about in search of tidings of my boy until I died.'
`Began to think as how he was a scientific flying Dutchman!' said the Captain, as before, and with great seriousness.